


A Ghost of a Chance

by yvonnereid



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 05:27:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/807804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yvonnereid/pseuds/yvonnereid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Justin is home watching a movie when a woman appears asking for help. What does she want and how can Justin help?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Ghost of a Chance

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> Story named by Kathleen (7wildwaysup)  
> Beta: Judy (bigj52)

***

It started off as a normal Friday night for Justin.

His parents had gone to his aunt’s house in the suburbs, taking his baby sister, Molly with them.

He had just locked the house up, and switched on the TV, settling down with his popcorn and Pepsi.

Rolling his eyes sideways, he noticed a blond female figure sitting next to him.

He jumped, and turned to face her.

“Fuck! Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?” he yelled, with wide eyes and a now very pale face.

The woman looked at the blond, surprised at his admission. “You can see me?” she asked in a soft voice.

“Of course I can see you,” replied Justin. “Why the hell wouldn’t I be able to?” he asked, standing up. “How the hell did you get in here?” he asked again.

”Let me answer your first question first. My name is Cynthia Buckley. I’m so happy you can see me. You’re Justin Taylor, right?” she asked knowingly.

Justin sat on the chair opposite the blonde-haired woman “Yes, I am Justin. But how did you get in here, and what do you want?” he asked again.

“I need your help, Justin. I need you to do something for me please.”

He looked at the woman, curious as to what her request would be.

 

“What do you need me to do?” he asked.

“I need you to call someone for me, and give them a message. Will you do that, please?”

Justin didn’t feel threatened in any way by this woman. He thought to himself, if he called this person, the woman would leave (although he still had no idea how she got in). He walked over to the phone, and picked it up.

“What’s the number?” he asked.

Cynthia told Justin the number and he dialled it. As he waited for it to be answered he asked the woman, “Whom should I ask for?” Cynthia replied, “Ask for Brian Kinney. When he comes on the phone tell him your name and that you have a message from Cynthia Buckley. Tell him that there are files under my apartment that he will need, that I didn’t give to him”.

“Hello.”

“Yes, hello. My name is Justin Taylor. Can I please talk to a Brian Kinney?” he asked in his best WASP voice.

“Please hold.”

 

The man on the other end replied a few moments later. “Mr Taylor, how may I help you?”

“Um, Mr Kinney. I have a message for you from a Cynthia Buckley who’s here…”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” asked the man on the other end. “What do you mean Cynthia is there? Is this some kind of a sick fucking joke?” he asked angrily. “Cynthia died a week ago, and who the fuck is this?”

Justin felt his blood run cold, as the line went dead. He looked at the woman standing next to him. “A ghost. Are you a ghost?”

Cynthia ran her fingers through her hair, before replying, “Yes, Justin. Look, I don’t want to frighten you. I’m not going to hurt you, I promise you that. I just need your help.”

“Why do you need my help? I don’t even know you.”

“I need your help, because you are the only person that can see and hear me. Please, Justin, I’m begging you to help me. Will you go to his place of work? That’s where he is tonight. It’s Friday night, which means he will be there until ten. Please, he needs this information I have. I didn’t get to give it to him before I died.”

Justin looked closer at the woman before him. That’s when it hit him. “You’re the woman that was shot outside her front door last week. That’s you, isn’t it?” It wasn’t really a question, since he now knew that this was that woman.

“Yes, that was me.” The lady looked very sad now. “I was killed by the same people who want what I have, which is why you have to tell Brian where I put the files. He will know what to do with them. Please?” She begged.

Justin took in the information the woman had given him, and looked into her pleading eyes.

“Ok, I will do it for you,” he replied. “I’ll get the car keys. It’s a good job I have my mom’s car because it’s easier to drive”.

Cynthia gave him directions to ‘Kinnetik’ where her former boss worked, and in no time they were parked outside the building.

“Shit!” the blond woman said, clearly annoyed. “Tommy must have gone, the building looks locked up from downstairs. Brian’s car is still there which means so is he. We will have to go round the back and find out though. His office is at the back. Come on.”

Both Cynthia and Justin walked round the back of the building, and the woman was happy to see that a light was on in Brian’s office.

“He’s still here. Right, I need you to listen to me very carefully, Justin. I want you to come round the front with me.”

When they got to the front of the building again, Cynthia gave him the code to open the doors and enter the building safely without the alarms going off.

Once inside, he was quickly led up to Brian’s office door by Cynthia.

“Shit! What the hell am I supposed to do now? If he’s the only person in the building then me knocking at his door will scare the shit out of him, especially if he’s an old man. My sixty-five-year old uncle died last year of a heart attack, believed by my aunt Fay to have happened because she walked up behind him, and he wasn’t prepared for that,” the blond whispered.

“Justin, a lot of people would find it impossible for Brian to have a heart attack, since they believe he doesn’t have a heart to begin with. And he’s only thirty-four. Knock on the door and don’t think like that,” the woman whispered back.

Taking a deep breath, Justin knocked at the door.

“Come in,” the voice from the other side shouted

Taking another deep breath, Justin opened the door and walked inside with Cynthia following close behind, and shut it behind them both.

“Mr Kinney?” he asked, as he looked directly at the brunet for the very first time. God, this man was the most beautiful man he had ever seen. “Uh, we spoke on the phone earlier. My name is Justin Taylor.”

Brian got up from his chair quickly, and walked around it as Justin walked up to the desk, so they were standing face to face.

“How the fuck did you get in here? Is Tommy still here?” the brunet asked as he took in the blond before him. “Are you the one that made that sick call earlier?”

Justin felt his entire body tense

“Tell him you need to talk to him about files that are under the floorboards at my apartment,” the woman told him.

“Look, I will just say what I have to say then leave. There are very important files under Cynthia’s floorboards in her apartment. She told me to tell you get them because they have evidence…or something like that. But it’s something you need.”

The brunet smiled. “When exactly did she tell you this?” he asked as he fingered the collar of the blond’s shirt.

“It was two hours ago when she first app…um, two weeks ago.” Justin began to feel stupid at what he was saying now. He looked at the blond woman who was standing beside Brian, and sighed. “I guess there is no point in telling you the truth, since I have a feeling you won’t believe me anyway.”

Brian walked back behind his desk, and sat down.

“Take a seat, Mr Taylor, and talk to me. Tell me what your truth is. I’m a lot more open minded than some people give me credit for.”

Justin took a seat.

“Ok, here goes. I was watching a film when I saw someone out of the corner of my eye next to me on the sofa. My parents are out of town for the weekend, and I was alone. It was a blonde woman.” Justin looked over at Cynthia who was still standing beside the brunet, and smiled softly at her. “It freaked me out how she got in, since I knew I had locked the whole house up, but I didn’t feel threatened by her.” Brian listened carefully.

“She asked me to call you, but you freaked out and hung up the phone after asking me if this was a sick joke because she had died a week ago. When I studied her closely, I remembered seeing her face in the papers and knew who she was then.”

Brian continued to listen.

“She asked me to come here, and when we got here she told me that Tommy wasn’t here because the lights were shut off, and we had to go round the back of the building to see if you were here, even though she saw your car in the lot. She then took me round the front, told me the code to get in here and the rest is…well, happening now.”

Justin sat back fully in the chair now and sighed as he tried to read the brunet’s expression.

Brian sighed also. “I believe you, Justin. If this were under any other circumstance I would have called the cops quicker than you could finish your last name when you came in here. But the reasons I believe you come down to two things. The first is, only Cynthia and I know the codes in and out of this building, so either of us can lock up, although the staff think it’s the security guard that does it. And the second thing is, I can see the honesty in your eyes.”

Both blonds closed their eyes and let out the breath they didn’t know they had been holding.

“Justin, tell Brian he has to go to the apartment tonight,” Cynthia told him.

“Cynthia said you have to go there tonight, Brian.”

“Is she here with us right now, in this room?”

“Yes, she’s standing beside you on your left.”

The brunet raised his eyebrows. “Why is she standing by my left?” he asked.

Cynthia started laughing. “Tell him because about a week before I died he told me if I stood beside him on his right side again when he had a hangover or was extremely horny, he would sack me, even though he always threatened me with that.”

The blond woman looked closely at the brunet’s wrist. “Oh, Justin, tell him he switched wrists that he wears his cowry shells on.”

“She said about a week before she died you told her if she stood beside you on the right side again when you had a hangover or were extremely horny, you would sack her. She also just told me to tell you that you switched the wrist that you wear cowry shells on.”

Brian chuckled softly. “Ok, I’m really convinced now. Let’s go. You can come with me if you want. Would that be ok? I will need you to keep watch.”

Justin thought of this as an exciting adventure, plus this guy was really hot. “Sure, I can do that for you.”

The other man smiled, and grabbed his car keys. After locking up the building the two of them headed to Cynthia’s apartment in the corvette (with Cynthia following closely behind).

When they arrived at Cynthia’s former home, Brian and Justin with her still following them, went inside after finding the key under the plant pot.

“Justin, you stay at this window and tell me if anyone comes. Especially if a black car pulls up, then we leave through that door,” Brian said, pointing to the door at the other end of the room.

“Fuck!” mumbled Brian when he lifted the floorboard Justin told him to, and found the box. “It’s coded.”

Cynthia spoke up. “Tell him the code is Gus’s birthday.”

Justin did so, and then asked who Gus was.

“He’s my son,” replied the brunet as he typed in the date.

The brown box opened, revealing the documents that the brunet needed.

Justin couldn’t help but melt into the adrenalin he began to feel. Brian had to find secret files and hide them, or take them to the police, and he was now a part of it. He couldn’t wait to tell his best friend, Daphne about this. And the two men were on the run. It was just too exciting.

“Right, I have the files. Everything clear out there, sunshine?” Brian asked Justin.

 

“Everything is clear, boss,” replied the teen, who made Brian laugh inwardly.

“Ok, let’s get the fuck out of here,” the man scanned the room with his eyes knowing his former friend was with them. “Thanks Cyn, expect a pay raise next pay day.”

The blond woman laughed.

On the way back to Kinnetik, Brian told Justin a little about himself.

After entering the building, they went straight into Brian’s office. The brunet took the files to his cabinet and put them in it, gaining him a look of disbelief from Justin.

“Shouldn’t you hide those some place where someone can’t just walk in and find them?” he asked.

Brian went and sat behind his table. “That’s where they belong, with all the other files.”

Justin thought for a moment, looking at Cynthia, before speaking “But I thought these files were very important. I thought they were a matter of life and death.”

Cynthia smiled and spoke to him. “They are. Brian needs these files for Kinnetik. They are his work files. I was keeping everything up to date for him.”

Justin then looked at Brian. “But I thought that we were on a secret mission. Like  
finding secret files that we had to take to the police that could put someone in jail. Or finding secret agent stuff that would have people looking for us like in the ‘Bond’ movies or…”

“You’ve seen way too many films, kid. How old are you anyway?”

“I’m seventeen and a half. I will be eighteen in a few more months. Why?” Justin asked, a little annoyed.

“Because you have this delusion about movies being a reality. James Bond? Secret agent crap?” Brian laughed. “What the fuck movie are you living in anyway?” He asked Justin.

Justin looked down at his feet and back up at Brian. “I’m not living in a movie. I’m living in a boring life that needs some excitement, and I thought this would be very exciting to do, I guess.”

 

Brian and smiled and thought for a moment. “What you need is a good night out, and I’m just the person who can help you with that,” he said as he walked over to the blond and kissed him. Cynthia cleared her throat and distracted Justin. He pulled back and looked over to where she stood beside the door. “I guess my time here is done now. What was holding me back from moving on has now been completed,” she said. “I can now rest in peace knowing my job here is done. And one more thing, don’t take any of his shit,” and with that, she faded away into the air and was gone.

Justin smiled and continued kissing Brian, knowing that his life would now get better. That Brian would be a part of it, and things would change for him.

Fin

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed my story. Comments make me smile (If they are good lol)


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